


leave as though fire burns under your feet

by anneweaver



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, pointless angst and fluff, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8146699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneweaver/pseuds/anneweaver
Summary: He thinks of the plans he had already made, the speech he had already written, the life he had already pictured for them, and if he doesn’t get to have it after this mission, maybe for a moment before, he can.If he’s going to die, he wants to have this.





	

They leave the Director’s office wordlessly, the silence between them hanging heavy with the weight of what he was asking him to do. What he was asking  _ them  _ to do.

He was well aware that the Director basically asked him to go on a suicide mission; he was also well aware, as everyone else was, that he couldn’t refuse. And even if he hadn’t known, really, Jemma’s face when the Director gave him his orders would’ve been all the explanation he needed.

When they reach their room, they walk in and close the door, Jemma leaning against it. She rubs her face with both of her hands.

“You can’t go,” she says, her voice sounding exhausted. Fitz snorts, the bitterness seeping through the sound.

“Yeah, sure,” he replies, rolling his eyes, “because I can just ignore a direct order like that. You know better than that, Jem.”

“I don’t care!” she says, a little hysterically, and throws her head back, runs her fingers through her hair. “I could not care one bit about his direct order, especially not when he knows this is basically a suicide mission–”

“–which wouldn’t be the first–”

“–and he knows damn well you are not the only person who can do it!”

He sits on their bed and sighs. “If I don’t go, it still means someone else will. And if he told  _ me _ , it’s because I’m the one who has to do it.”

She takes a few steps towards him but doesn’t sit down, instead standing in front of him with her arms crossed; when he looks at her, he notices her eyes are full of unshed tears.

She looks up. “It’s not fair,” she mutters.

“Life isn’t fair,” he replies, darkly, and looks down at the covers to avoid having to look at her. When he finally looks up again, she’s glaring at him. “What?”

Her voice is shaking when she speaks. “Why do you need to be a hero?” she spits out, “what is it about this life we have that you hate so much?”

He freezes for a moment; then, he stands up from the bed and closes the gap between them, wraps his arms around her shoulders and pulls her closer. She closes her eyes tightly to keep the tears from falling, and leans on his chest.

He kisses the top of her head. “I love you,” he whispers against her hair, “and there is nothing about the life we share that hasn’t made me the happiest man in the world. But let me just ask you something: if it was the other way around, if it was you who had to go, would you stay?”

He feels her tense up in his arms, and he knows she understands now. 

She uncrosses her arms and slides them around his middle, hugs him tight for a moment. “You don’t have to die,” she says in a little voice. “Promise me you will at least  _ try _ not to die.”

“I will try,” he says, and breaks the hug. Once he lets her go, his hands move to her face and he holds her, looks at her, takes her in; her eyes remain tightly shut, undoubtedly still holding back her tears, but the tip of her nose and her cheeks are already red. He strokes her cheek with one thumb, still not looking away from her face, and takes a moment to mourn the life they might never get to have now. All the mornings of not waking up next to her, a future they might’ve pictured a few times under the covers after particularly hard days, a future away from S.H.I.E.L.D and tucked away in a small cottage, a future where they could  _ be _ , where they could live… 

He thinks of the plans he had already made, the speech he had already written, the life he had already pictured for them, and if he doesn’t get to have it after this mission, maybe for a moment before, he can.

If he’s going to die, he wants to have this.

He lets go of her face and turns away from her, reaches across the bed for his bedside drawer; once he manages to open it, he rummages through it for a few seconds until his fingers find the familiar velvet texture.

When he pulls the small box from the drawer, Jemma’s eyes widen. Her hands fly to her mouth, barely covering her surprised gasp.

“No,” she says, as the tears already in her eyes finally start to spill, “no, don’t you  _ dare _ . Don’t you dare do this to me again.”

“I was waiting for the right moment,” he whispers, his heartbreak evident in his voice, “I even had a date planned. And I wrote a speech. But I think it’s just hitting me now that there might not be a right moment, so–”

“Fitz, stop it,” she whispers as though she can’t trust her voice to come out louder.

“Just let me finish, okay?” he pleads, and he tries to open the box. In a swift move, she kneels beside him, both of her hands rushing to cover the box and hold his own hand.

“No,” she says, firmly this time. “Whatever you’re going to say right now, keep it to yourself. You are  _ not  _ proposing to me right now, do you understand?”

He frowns at her. “If I don’t do it–”

“ _ No _ !” she shouts, and both of them flinch. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath to keep her voice steady. “You’re going to stop that right this second! You did this to me once, you are  _ not  _ doing it to me again. You are  _ not  _ going to die and I am  _ not  _ going to tell my future kids that their father proposed to me before he thought he was going to die on a mission, do you hear me?”

“Jem–” he starts, and his voice breaks. She places a finger on his lips.

“If you propose to me right now, I’m going to say no,” she warns him. “This is not how it should be, how  _ we  _ should be, and  _ this,”  _ she motions to the space between them, “has happened one too many times; we always do this, discuss important matters right before one of us is about to die. I don’t want that to be my life— _ our  _ life. So if you propose right now I will say no, but if you go out there and come back alive, I will be waiting for you and the second you step out of that quinjet, I swear to you I will say yes.”

“That’s not fair,” he whispers against her finger. She holds his face and closes the gap between them, presses her lips to his forehead.

“Life isn’t fair,” she replies, echoing his previous words, “as demonstrated by our current situation. But now you have a reason to come back to me.”

He looks up at her. “I always have a reason to come back to you,” he says, before their lips meet.

-o-

When she’s waving him goodbye as he leaves on the mission, she doesn’t shed one tear.

Next to her, the Director is quiet.

-o-

The bullet barely grazes his side but it’s enough to send him tumbling over; then, he feels a sharp pain on his head, and crashes to the ground.

Before he blacks out, his last thought is of the small ring inside the velvet box.

-o-

When he opens his eyes, the first thing he notices is the uncomfortable white light of what he assumes must be the med bay. The second thing he notices is the familiar pressure of a hand holding on to his fingers.

He takes a few seconds to remember the last day’s events, and when he remembers how he ended up in the med bay, the injury on his right side makes itself known. The pain is strong enough to make him clear his throat so he won’t groan. He’s not surprised to hear a gasp in response to his sound, and the hand holding him tightens; not two full seconds after, there’s movement next to him, a face blocking the light, and fingers brushing the hair off his forehead.

“Hi,” Jemma says in a whisper, her voice low and teary. From what he can see, her face looks red and puffy, her hair is disheveled and she looks exhausted. 

Quite honestly, she’s the most beautiful creature he has ever seen.

That is why, as soon as the events previous to the mission come back to him, he knows this is the moment.

“I came back to you, and I’m mostly alive,” he says in a hoarse whisper, “now, will you please marry me?”

Even if she were to say no, the way she looks at him right before she starts laugh-crying would’ve been enough for him.

She’s still laughing when she presses her lips to his forehead, and when one of her tears falls on his cheek, she wipes it off with one thumb, caressing his cheekbone in the process.

“Of course I will marry you,” she whispers against the clammy skin of his forehead. He closes his eyes and revels in the feeling.

Even though he almost died and he feels like shit, he has never felt happier.

“Thank you,” he whispers back.

A moment later, he feels her smiling against his forehead. He’s about to ask when she speaks up.

“Not right now, though,” she says, “because no offense, love, but you look like crap.”

The wound shoots a sharp pain through his body when he laughs in response, but it feels like a small price to pay for a lifetime of this, of  _ her.  _

He thinks it's definitely worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no explanation and/or excuse for this. 
> 
> Title from You, by Keaton Henson. Thanks to Diana for letting me scream my idea at her after Quantico aired yesterday, and to my favorite noble-land mermaid Shay for beta-ing.


End file.
